Cactus Flower

Piaui, 2003 with Uncle Harold Reiner Parque Nacional da Serra das Confusões, 2003 First go kart, 2002 Cristino Castro, PI, place with many natural geysers Pottery factory, Serra da Capivara, PI Treasure Island Camp, 2006 João Pessoa, Paraiba, 2007 Juazeiro da Bahia, 2008

A few years back, sometime around 2006 to be exact, we had the privilege of hosting some little girls in our home on a regular basis so they could study in town every so many times per month.  Those little girls lived with their family on the island camp.  The family were friends who had moved from Fortaleza to help us in our new camp work.  They were faithful members of the church we had helped in JoaoXXIII.  The church there sent them out as lay missionaries to come and help us in Bahia. There were three little girls including the one sitting beside William in the picture above.  Since homeschooling is technically not allowed in Brazil and these girls needed to study and there was no school on the island - we worked out a deal with the local school and the secretary of education of our little town to have the girls assigned to their proper grade and classroom at a school in town but only come in to go to class in person so many times a month.  The rest of...

Today I'm thinking about how much we depend on our bicycles in Brazil.  Someone in my family rides a bike for a purpose - not for fun - almost every day.  We ride our bikes to Wednesday night church, to the breadstore, to the market, to go up and check on the boat, and to make visits.  Many people in Brazil consider themselves lucky to own a bike.  I've seen men herding cows on bikes.  I've seen men leading horses down the road while riding a bike. {Reidsville 2003, furlough bikes from Grandaddy} When we lived in Fortaleza, we hardly ever went by car to church.  Our church was about five city blocks from our house, so we rode our bikes to get there.  Uncle Byron had a baby seat on his and took one boy on the bar of the bike. I took one on my "garupa." {Ask your father.  If he doesn't know, ask your mother.  If she's not sure, ask one of your brothers.  If they don't know, ask another brother. If all else fails, send me a message - it won...

When I was a little girl of about 7 years old, I got to go to what I remember as my first Vacation Bible School.  Your Daddy and I were living with our parents in Baltimore, Maryland.  Grandaddy and Grandma were attending a little church called Dundalk Free Methodist Church.  Even today I can easily remember all the nooks, crannies, and special hiding places in that church.  Grandaddy cleaned the building for a few years and we had lots of hours to explore. At V.B.S. that year there was a special speaker.  He was a man who did lots of illusions or "magic tricks" as object lessons.  I can almost see him now in my memory.  One of the nights of V.B.S. he did a trick about a giant measuring stick.  He said it would measure to see if someone was good enough to get into heaven.  But, it didn't matter what the person had done, there was nothing good enough to make the ruler reach up to heaven.  He talked about how there are none righteous, no n...

March was a wild and long month for this little, hard working mother.  It was my second full month of my new job and included numerous trips to town at the crack of dawn to figure out how to get a Brazilian work card.  The school where I am teaching in the big city requires it and getting it turned out to be a not so easy task.  I made a total of five trips into town to take care of the "simple" task. Adding to all my stress was an unforeseen medical procedure at the end of February which wore down my defenses on all levels - setting me up for the long, wild month of March.  Multiply all that about a million times with the upcoming departure of our oldest for the States.  Tired + Stressed + Pre-Grieving = U.M.M.  {Unhappy Missionary Mama}  But somehow with lots of TLC from my family, I made it through the seemingly long month - to be rewarded with a happy pre-departure memory moment with my boy. One of my little joys on this spot of the globe in...

Well, let me tell you a little more about our only cat pet - Abby.  Her official name was A.B. Normal.  Uncle Byron is a very "punny" kind of person and thought is was a unique twist on abnormal . She was certainly a different kind of cat. Uncle Byron found her at the Missionary Aviation Institute hangar when he was studying there in 1989 or so.  Seems there were a lot of little kittens and Byron had heard some of the younger students talking about putting the cats in a cardboard box and sending them for a little boat ride on the campus lake.  So, he decided to save at least one from death by water and brought it home. Abby was so very little that I don't think she was really ready to leave her mother.  We fed her milk with a little medicine dropper and had to teach her to eat smooshed up cat food dampened with milk.  We had to help her learn all the things that a mother cat would have taught her babies.  The vet that saw her suggested dampening the co...